


Apparent - Year One.

by wutthequiznack (birbsandemidogs04)



Series: Apparent [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Allura is 24, Keith and Shiro are Siblings, Matt is 19, Multi, coran is in his forties, keith hunk pidge and lance are babies, shiro is 27
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-15
Updated: 2018-05-04
Packaged: 2019-04-23 07:48:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 4,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14327895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/birbsandemidogs04/pseuds/wutthequiznack
Summary: I just finished season 5 of VLD and I needed to write something wholesome to tide me over until June :/So I just started writing! Hopefully you guys enjoy reading this as much as I am enjoying writing it. Basically... the paladins and their "space parents" growing up.





	1. Allura.

**Author's Note:**

> DISCLAIMER: I do not own Voltron Legendary Defender or the Voltron Franchise... It belongs to Dreamworks and its respective creators and animators. This work/series of works is/are purely fictional and based on HCs and canon. 
> 
> Yep. That is all. Please enjoy !

Allura.

\--

"You'll be quite fine, my darling," 

Allura's gaze came away from the gothic building before her to settle on Coran. His moustache was twitching in a troubled way, like it did when he wanted to reassure her. 

"I hope so," she breathed. A hand lifted to skim her glistening white curls. She had worked hard that morning to make them look presentable. Nervously she combed through them before realizing she'd put gel on them, and stopped. "I'm afraid I'll come home with all of them."

Coran chuckled, gripping the steering wheel as if to drive away on a high-speed chase. "Just keep your eyes peeled for the two you legally claimed." 

Allura smiled, showing teeth. It was hard to believe that she'd never gotten nervous when delivering speeches or the like on diplomatic missions with Coran, but now that she was finalizing an adoption process, she was scared stiff. 

"I'm afraid this is where you leave me, Princess." Coran drew her out of her thoughts, his hand coming to rest on her shoulder. "Get out of this car and get inside that orphanage. When you come back, I expect you to have the two little rapscallions that you've adopted gripped by the scruffs of their necks."

Allura nodded, no humour left in her system. She quivered slightly, feeling like her organs were liquefying. 

This was a happy thing, right?

"Wish me luck," she could hear herself saying as she obediently exited. 

"You won't need it," Coran told her with a smile, and locked the car behind her. 

\--


	2. Matt.

\--

Matt.

"Come on, Pidge, breakfast time," Matt collected his infant brother up off his starry quilt, ignoring his protests. The tiny warm form wiggled in his arms and soon began to cry, which Matt knew instantly was an act. He'd had enough experience with the tiny human over the year he'd been living with it that Pidge was inordinately smart for a baby and would cry to guilt-trip him. Patting his back temporarily calmed the child so Matt could settle him into the Craiglist-ad highchair he'd gotten after he'd been saddled with the responsibility of taking care of him.

Turning away to grab the baby food from the cupboard near the table, Matt snuck a look at the label and gagged. "Yuch, peas," he commented, in typical teenage fashion. Then, seeing Pidge staring intently at him, quickly threw on a smile and mimed rubbing his stomach. "I mean, mmmm! Delicious!" 

Pidge shot him a look that a regular infant should not be able to make until it was maybe five years old. It was a look that screamed, "what an idiot". 

Matt frowned back and uncapped the jar, whipping out a spoon and scooping out some food. "Come on, just eat. I might be an idiot, but I'm not letting you starve or Dad'll kill me." 

Obediently Pidge opened his mouth and accepted the food. He'd always been a good eater, Matt had to admit, even if he was a little smartass. The jar was soon finished, prompting Matt to throw it into the dish-filled sink. 

He stared at the sink guiltily. "Uh, yeah, we should probably wash those."  
Glancing back at Pidge, he grimaced. "Too bad you can't help me yet." 

Pidge smiled conspiratorially back in response, as if he knew he was getting out of work. 

"Well, we do need more dish soap," Matt said, scratching his chin. "So you're not getting out of it that fast, little man."

Pidge slumped. 

\--

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! Just a quick note - I HC that Pidge in the series was born male, but transitioned to female and was forced to resort back to her physical gender to get into the Garrison, so here she will be portrayed as an infant male and will be referred to as such, because she cannot word her feelings exactly yet. More development on that later.


	3. Shiro.

Shiro.

"First day of school! Are you excited, Keith?" 

Shiro walked into his baby brother's bedroom and was greeted by the sight of the toddler still fast asleep under his covers. Shiro felt his heart ache. Keith normally wasn't the most cheerful child, but the last night, after having shopped for school supplies, he had realized he was going away from Shiro and had tucked himself away into gloominess. 

Taking a deep breath in, Shiro made his way over to Keith's bed and sat at the edge, his hand stretching out to stroke the toddler's hair lovingly. Keith had started growing hair soon after birth and now sported what looked to be a mullet already. Shiro didn't cut it; he kept shampooing and conditioning it out so that it was healthy and shiny. Maybe when Keith was five he would take him to a barber's, but right now he had baby hair that was too soft to put scissors near it.

The gentle nudging seemed to work in rousing the small child, although Keith's waking expression was not much of an improvement over his sleeping one.   
He squinted at Shiro through half-lidded eyes, and there was dramatically less life in them than Shiro had ever seen before. Usually Keith's blue eyes sparkled with emotion, but now it seemed he had lost all hope. 

"Keith, I know you don't want to go," Shiro started sincerely. "I don't want you to go. But school will be fun, I promise. You're going to make lots of new friends, and learn new things that I couldn't possibly teach you-"

Keith cut him off at this point to interject with, "No!"   
There was despair in his little face now, which sawed Shiro's heart right in half. In a desperate attempt to make Shiro see things from his side, Keith sat up and shuffled over to his older brother, patting his face as if to get his attention. 

Shiro chuckled through his tears. The thought of Keith leaving for school had always been hard for him to bear, but it had to happen. He couldn't keep him at home forever; he had a part time job and had to pay the bills. He couldn't keep leaving Keith with a sitter - they couldn't afford it. Besides, Keith hated the sitter. 

Shiro caught Keith's tiny hand in his own and peered into his baby brother's eyes, nodding. "I know. Believe me, I'm not doing this as a punishment, or because I want to. You will like school. I promise."

Keith wasn't a master in the English or even Japanese languages, to which he was always exposed, but he comprehended many abstract ideas, including the promise. He knew that if someone said they were certain of something, and promised as such, then it must be true. Especially if that someone was Shiro, whom he naively trusted over anyone else to whom he'd been introduced in his young life. So he nodded too, and repeated, "Promise." 

Shiro smiled. "That's better. Now, let's have breakfast and then I'll show you your backpack, hmm?"

\--


	4. Lance.

\--

Lance. 

The visiting lady was really pretty. 

He told Hunk this at playtime. Hunk agreed, but also added that he thought it was kinda gross. 

Picking up the blue toy car, Lance wondered if she was there looking for a new job. Sometimes new people showed up around in grey outfits, like the others, and started looking after the kids too. 

"Do you think she's gonna stay?" Lance asked Hunk, slurring his words because of a recently-lost front tooth. 

"I dunno." Hunk shrugged. He picked up the yellow car. "Wanna play Voltron?" 

Lance nodded, bringing the blue car over. "We have to find red!" he cried, scrambling. 

Meanwhile, the pretty lady from before had spotted Hunk and Lance and was coming over, a smile on her face. Up close, Hunk could see she had white hair and dark skin, like his. He instantly brightened. 

"Lance, look!" 

Lance turned, a tight grip on the red car (which had always been his favourite) and saw the pretty lady. 

She walked over quick and was sitting on the carpet in a couple of seconds. "Are you Lance?" she asked him, smiling a smile Lance's mama used to smile. 

He nodded shyly. The thought of mama made him want to cry. 

"And Hunk?" he lady continued, turning to Hunk. 

Hunk nodded boldly. "Yeah, I'm Hunk! Nice to meet you!" 

He had just learned that phrase from a movie they'd watched and wouldn't stop saying it to anyone he met. Day in, day out. Its novelty had worn off on Lance already, who hadn't spoken much since the accident that had landed him in the orphanage. 

But the lady laughed. "It's nice to meet you, too, Hunk. My name is Allura. I'm here to take you home."

"Home?" Hunk repeated. 

"Yes, home," Allura nodded. "Home with me."

Then she looked over at Lance. "Would you both like to come home with me?" 

Lance's eyes welled up with tears. He started to cry before he could stop himself. 

"Oh, I didn't mean to upset you, Lance!" he could hear Allura cry, and then -

"He cries alot. His mummy and daddy are gone forever." Hunk affirmed. 

This only made Lance cry harder.

He was subsequently surprised to find himself being hugged - for the first time since his parents had been with him. He felt warm, and loved, and protected, like he had when his mummy had hugged him, and his small hands went to wrap around the hugger's neck as he slobbered into their shoulder. 

When he was released, he saw that it was Allura who had hugged him, and sniffled. 

"I know what it feels like to lose someone who was close to you," she told him. "My daddy is gone too, gone forever. So if you feel like crying about your family, then you go right ahead. Hunk and I won't bother you, will we, Hunk?" 

Hunk shook his head. "Unless he needs hugs." 

"Yes," said Allura, laughing. "unless he needs some love." 

Lance found a small smile. 

\--


	5. Matt.

\--

Matt.

Matt exited the house with Pidge secured to his chest in a baby carrier, car keys in hand. Really, it was a miracle he even had a car - the fact that the family car still worked was astonishing. It was pretty much a lemon now, but back in the day jeeps had sold like hot cakes. Their Jeep was broken down and rusty, with about a million different problems that Matt couldn't afford to fix. Still, it dominated the roads and was in overall okay shape, which was good enough for him. 

Twirling the keys in his grasp now, he opened the front door and was about to get in when he heard someone calling to him. 

"Hey, Matt!" 

Matt instantly turned, recognizing the voice of Shiro, his neighbour. "Hey, wassup, Shiro... Oh, and Keith, too?" 

It was then that he noticed Keith hiding behind Shiro's pant leg, clinging to the fabric like his life depended on it. 

"Where you guys going?" 

"Oh, I'm taking Keith to school," Shiro explained, and hoisted Keith into his arms. Matt tried to look away from the gigantic muscles bulging in Shiro's arms, and instead cleared his throat. 

"First day, huh? That's great! Hopefully he has a good one." Matt called enthusiastically. "Pidge and I gotta get to the store, so we'll catch ya later!"

"The store?" Shiro wrinkled his brow in bemusement. "Since when are you a responsible guardian, Matt?" 

"Ha ha, very funny," Matt fumed. Casual ribbing from college days… of course. He remembered how they became friends, when Matt was seventeen and Shiro was taking his masters at twenty-four. Matt knew he was a genius and so did Shiro, but that didn't stop him teasing Matt about it. Shiro was a good guy, so Matt let him get away with it. 

"We're just getting dish soap, chillax." Matt added now, before turning to get in his car with a final wave. 

"Uh, Matt?" Shiro called again. 

"What is it now, Takashi?" Matt groaned, using Shiro's lesser-known first name that he had dropped soon after Keith's birth so as to guarantee the little mullet head would be able to pronounce his big brother's name. 

Shiro gave Matt a sheepish grin as he buckled Keith in the baby car seat in the back of his own car. "You're not going to put Pidge in the back?" 

Matt looked down, receiving a deathly look from the baby squirming in the carrier. "Yep. Dad's gonna kill me one day." 

He could've sworn Pidge nodded. 

\--


	6. Allura.

Allura.

Coran was napping in the car when Allura came back, Hunk and Lance each clinging to one of her pant legs. Allura smiled at the way his moustache ruffled when he snored, knocking abruptly on his window to get his attention. 

Coran was awake in an instant, and pressed the lock button so as to allow Allura and the two new members of their family back in the car. 

"Welcome back, princess!" he cried, rubbing his eyes. "Oh! And the two little ones!" 

Allura grinned as she hoisted Lance and Hunk into the car. "Coran, meet Lance and Hunk. Children, this is Coran. He was my daddy's friend, now he's like my uncle." 

Hunk smiled innocently and waved at Coran, prompting Coran to wave back. "Hi!" 

"Hello, little Hunk!" Coran beamed. His moustache twitched happily as he switched his gaze to the quieter of the two boys. "And this must be Lance." 

For his part, Lance simply smiled. "Your moustache is funny," he informed Coran in a barely-audible voice. Allura, surprised at the fact that the boy was actually speaking without being prompted, laughed outright. "Yes, it is, isn't it?" 

Coran frowned dramatically. "Why, I ought to take you down like a wild boar and tie you up for that! How would you like to be cooked up for supper, young man?" 

Amazingly, Lance giggled and shook his head. "No!"

"Alright, you get off this time... But be warned! Don't go out alone, little boar!" Coran cautioned. 

At this point, both toddlers were squealing with laughter, the sound filling the car and bringing Coran back to when Allura herself was a toddler and would laugh from her perch on her father's lap. Now studying her with the children, Coran felt a paternal pride that she was now experiencing this with her own. 

By way of nudging the toddlers toward their seats, Allura coaxed them out of their gleeful laughter by addressing them directly. "Come along, then. We have to get you two home from this horrible place."

As she buckled the two into their car seats, Allura smiled and seized each in her arms before letting them go. "I hope you will both come to love your new home," she told them, looking from one to the other as she knelt on the floor of the back of the car. 

"I'm sure they will, Allura," Coran commented gently from the driver's seat, all too familiar with his surrogate daughter's hesitant and uncertain nature when it came to herself. "Let's get you home, too." 

With a final smile at the two toddlers now in her charge, Allura descended from the back seat and obediently sat in the passenger seat, allowing Coran to drive them all home.

\--


	7. Keith.

\--

Keith. 

Keith was a smart kid. 

Shiro had taught him a lot in his four years of life - Keith knew right from wrong (don't steal knives from the kitchen when Shiro had told you no); he knew how to count to ten, he knew colours (he had a particular attachment to the colour blue) and he could understand some abstract ideas. 

Keith was also very attached to his big brother Shiro. In fact, he had separation anxiety and an innate sense of when he was about to be parted from him -all due, Shiro was certain, to the fact that Keith's mother was not a part of his life. 

So the day before Keith was to start his first day of school, while he and Shiro were shopping for supplies, Keith figured out relatively quickly that they weren't just shopping for groceries. 

He kicked his legs idly from the baby seat of the cart, watching Shiro examine the aisles and thinking vaguely of the Mothman episode he was probably missing. 

"Mothman," Keith informed Shiro, tugging at his jacket, knowing his brother would understand what he was trying to say. 

Shiro simply nodded, his gaze still fixated on the rows of aisles stretched out in front of their cart. "I know, Keith. We'll go home in a bit so you can watch Mothman, alright?" 

Keith seemed to accept this for a bit, until Shiro steered the cart into the first aisle and spotted what he was looking for. 

"Ah-hah!" he enthused. "Perfect!" 

Bringing the cart around so Keith could see better, Shiro flourished the rows of what Keith could only identify as sacks on the walls. The confused toddler shifted his gaze back to Shiro, unsure of what to do. 

Shiro grinned, taking one off the shelf. "It's a backpack, Keith," he told his baby brother as he approached with the sack. Keith's hands splayed over the sack in curiosity - he liked the colour (red), it was nice, but he wasn't sure what he'd need it for.  
He looked back up at Shiro again, his head tilted. 

"You put things in it," explained Shiro patiently. He mimed putting a box from the shelf inside the sack. "We'll need one of these for tomorrow!" 

Keith was still very much confused. "What's tomorrow?" 

"Tomorrow you are going to school!" answered Shiro, as he placed the box from the sack back on its shelf. He came back around to the cart and began to push it down the aisle again. 

"School?" Keith asked. He had heard the word before, and it scared him slightly. 

Shiro smiled, and to anyone else it would seem that this smile took him much effort to hold up. Keith looked on with big blinking childhood eyes, unfazed.  
"Yeah, school. We'll - uh, we'll talk about it at home, alright?" 

Keith nodded. He was more than willing to discuss it at home.

\--

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shiro's chapter to follow, that'll continue Keith's.


	8. Shiro.

\--

Shiro.

A couple of hours later, Shiro and Keith were finally home after collecting all the supplies the younger one would need for his first day of school, the matter about which Keith was still clueless. No amount of mental training would have prepared Shiro for his talk with Keith about it, however. 

When it finally came time to tell him, it was after dinner - Shiro had made dumplings and bought sushi from around the corner, which Keith loved - and Shiro brought Keith into his lap on the living room couch. 

Usually after dinner, the two of them would watch Baby Einstein or something of the like so that Keith's mind could be enriched, something in which Shiro believed firmly. He owed it to this that Keith could speak so well already. 

Instead of turn on the television, Shiro addressed his little brother directly, moving him to his side and meeting his curious, tilted gaze.   
"Tomorrow, Keith, you're going to school," he started heavily. "And that means you're going to be away from me."

Keith's eyes seemed to widen so that they sparkled with fear. "How long?" he asked, his voice crackling as though he were about to cry.

"Not long, only for a little bit," Shiro reassured him quickly, leaning over to stroke Keith's hair comfortingly - a method of calming his tears that Shiro had learned quite soon after Keith's birth. Keith's lip trembled, though he wasn't quite bawling yet. "Don't worry, Keith. You'll be okay, I promise."

Deep down, he hated promising things to Keith. Little children looked up to adults, and that meant they trusted them all the time because they didn't know better. Keith had never been to school, but Shiro had. From what Shiro remembered, before he had been forced to drop out of college to take care of Keith, school had not been the most pleasant experience. Sure, he was Valedictorian in both elementary and high school, but the classroom environment, Shiro remembered, was not his favourite place to learn. He had enjoyed the teachers and learning, but not the social aspect of having to be civil with the classmates who called him a "nerd", among other things. College had been the better experience out of the three levels of school - that was where he had met Matt, and formed a friendship based on shared past experiences. Matt and Shiro had each other's backs - and it was by pure coincidence and luck that they now lived next door to each other.

Shiro could only hope that Keith befriended someone like what Matt was to him, someone who would like him and prove that school wasn't so bad after all. 

Praying for this, Shiro made his promise to Keith. Surely there were other little kids that would be attending the Garrison Elementary who identified with Keith. Hopefully Keith could find them, or they could find him, and then he'd have some friends. Shiro's ultimate fear would be if Keith kept to himself and became a loner in his teens, because that was the breeding ground for all kinds of rejection and alienation. He desperately didn't want that for Keith. 

Now, stroking Keith's hair, he turned on the television to Baby Einstein. He fancied he needed the distraction more than Keith.


	9. Allura and her kids.

\--

Allura, Lance and Hunk. 

A week to the day after Lance and Hunk went home with Allura, they were obliged to go to kindergarten. 

The orphanage had been civil, Allura supposed - they had allowed the children at least a week to get settled in their new home before they were uprooted again. She was still bitter about this. Not only had she hoped to homeschool the boys, but she had at least wanted to spend a little more time getting to know them and bonding with them than a measly week. 

If it weren't for Coran, she would have carried through on her decision to homeschool Hunk and Lance. 

"Think about this, Allura," he advised calmly as she stormed about the floor of their new house, the floorboards of which were coloured a gorgeous mahogany. The two new kids were sitting on the couch, watching one of the few television program Allura had deemed alright for "growing minds". Hunk and Lance were seemingly entranced by the images on the screen, despite them being various videos of Savannah animals in their natural habitat. 

Allura sat hard on a kitchen chair and began to pick idly at the tag she had yet to remove. Some furniture, they had had to buy new, as a lot of the furniture from their old mansion was falling apart. Some of the things they still had were family heirlooms and decorations from generations past. 

"Think about what?" Allura demanded. Her eyes flashed purple. "Coran, I will be able to homeschool them. This could be the best thing for them." 

Coran grimaced. "Allura, my dear, you went to teaching school for half a year. And that wasn't even American school." 

"But I want to get them accustomed to living here before they part from me!" Allura whined. "School and a new home? That's too much fluctuation for them." 

Coran nodded grimly. "I know, I know. But this is how it must be. You don't want them getting too attached to you, do you?"

Allura glanced over at the two boys. She had already become attached to them. "That would be ideal…" 

"Allura." Coran warned, with an uncommonly serious look in his twinkling eyes. 

Again Allura could not stop herself from looking over at Hunk and Lance. Lance had tired of the program and was now slumped against Hunk's shoulder, fast asleep. Hunk, himself, was engrossed in the program, his eyes sparkling with wonder as he regarded the screen. It seemed he had developed an affinity for lions, something entirely too adorable. The sight of the two making themselves at home already warmed Allura's heart and simultaneously caused such a feeling of sadness that she had to look away from them. 

Coran putting a hand on her shoulder brought her gently out of her trance. With a sad smile she resigned herself to the fact that she would only really have the two boys in her full care for a week, which meant a week for all the bonding in the world, before school would take up much of their lives. 

\--


	10. Matt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy star wars day! 
> 
> **Just a fair warning - I've recently gotten sidetracked by writing other fics and so I might have to cut this one short at some point. I think maybe I'll keep it on the website but the frequency of posting of chapters will not be as fast - so, I'm sorry about that. It seems like, everytime I get into a new multi-fic work, I get sidetracked by one-shots :/ maybe I'll post those one-shots here too, depending on how they go. 
> 
> Alright, enjoy the chapter!**

\--

Matt.

"And now just hit that enter key, Pidge," Matt instructed his baby brother, cheering when he obeyed. "Yay! You just did my taxes!"

Pidge squirmed slightly, uncomfortable with his unsafe perch atop Matt's lap. 

"Ok, ok, you can have your nap now," Matt agreed, removing Pidge lightly and hoisting the infant into his arms. "You tired, Pidge?" 

The baby seemed to nod in response. He sucked his pacifier and began to shut his eyes, lulled to sleep by Matt's adoption of a rocking motion. 

His older brother gazed at his sleeping baby sibling, marveling at how cute he was when asleep. If he was right, school had been in for just about a month now, and that made a month since he'd seen Shiro and Keith leave for school that day. The thought of school tugged at his heartstrings; he knew he'd eventually have to send Pidge to school, too. In two short years, he would not be able to rock the baby to sleep like he was doing now. Pidge wouldn't have time for naps anymore. He'd be too big. 

With a sharp inhale, Matt cut the thoughts out of his head as he transported Pidge from his arms to the cot he'd set up in the corner of the office. The transfer was something he'd perfected over the years - it had to be sneaky. He could never just dump Pidge onto the mattress. He had to make sure that the transition was as smooth as possible, so that he didn't risk waking the baby. All the times he'd accidentally woken Pidge, it had been disastrous. 

With mission impossible-style care, Matt eased Pidge into the cot, stiffening when he stirred and only exhaling with relief once he was successfully lowered into it. 

He looked up and around the room, wondering how long before he wouldn't need the cot anymore. 

\--


End file.
